Unit 3 Assignment

WRT 114 / Unit 3 Assignment:  Essay on Place & Culture

 Introduction

In chapter 7 of Tell It Slant, Brenda Miller and Suzanne Paola caution that “Your own private world—if you inhabit it long enough—will become claustrophobic, not only for yourself but also for your readers” (64).  They emphasize the importance of learning to “direct your gaze outward, not leaving the self behind but perhaps sublimating the self to newly discover the subjects the world has to offer” (64).  While much of the creative nonfiction we’ve written in this class so far has been inward-tending, with reflective moments that focus on the development and transformation of the “self,” Unit 3 invites you to turn your gaze outward and focus on the world around you and your relationship to the urgent issues of the day.

During this unit, we’ll examine how issues of place and culture converge to form sites of exploration and discovery for an essay.  We’ll review Miller & Paola’s chapter on writing about place and read some examples of essays that explore ideas of place and culture. We’ll look at the role of place and space in shaping individual lives and identities, as well as the centrality of place in defining communities and cultures.  We’ll consider such themes as borders, relocation, immigration, resettlement, exile, homelessness, diaspora, pilgrimage, refuge, sanctuary, travel, the environment, urban spaces, suburban and rural landscapes, farming, gardening, architecture, and the emotions and relationships that accompany these many links to place and displacement.

We’ll explore how individuals and communities emerge from and sometimes find themselves in conflict over a given space.  We’ll also look at individual and group encounters that give meaning to certain spaces.  Some of the basic questions that will inform our discussions are:  What is culture?  How is it linked to place?  What’s the role of places in shaping culture?  How do the rules and rituals associated with a place shape the behaviors, beliefs, and bonds of the people who inhabit it?  How does the history of a place leave its mark on the present?  What’s the role of culture in leading to certain acts of place-making: i.e., the construction, architecture, interior design, arrangement, and decoration of the place?  How do our identities and social positions determine our experiences of particular places?  How much control do we have over our participation in and experience of culture and place?  To what extent do we construct culture, and to what extent does it construct us?

Your Task

For the third essay of the course, you will need to compose an essay that engages with issues of place, culture, and identity.  You may tap into aspects of place and culture that you already know something about, or you may seek to understand more about a place and culture you know little about.  Your essay will need to include a descriptive analysis of your place, and a discussion of the issue of culture, community, or identity that’s at stake for you in discussing this space.

You may begin by focusing on a particular place and examining the types of gatherings, encounters, rituals, collisions, or events that take place there.  Or, you may begin by tapping into a particular community and locate a place of importance to that community; then investigate the reasons why this place matters so much and the kind of culture that’s been established there.

Remember to use the tools of creative nonfiction that we’ve been practicing up to this point—scene, exposition, description, dialogue, imagery, metaphor, lyricism, and so on—to construct an essay that has a sense of immediacy and interest for the reader.  As with prior writing, it’s always important to maintain a mature awareness of your own subjectivity and positionality.  Even if you are not the central focus, you can still use reflection, memory, and imagination to establish your own connection to the topic you’ve chosen. You’ll need to be conscious of your own speaking voice, and the ways in which the things you say reveal aspects of your character and ethos as an involved narrator.

Basic Guidelines

The Unit 3 essay, which will count for 20% of your overall grade for the course, should be at least 6-8 pp. in length.  The due date for this essay is  Nov.30.  We’ll workshop rough drafts in class the week of  Nov.16, and I’ll expect everyone to exchange drafts for our peer editing sessions on Nov.18.

Research Requirement

For this essay, I want you to consider more seriously how research might enhance the interest of your essay.  What kinds of non-traditional research might work well in grounding an essay on culture and place?  We’ll spend time in class analyzing the research conducted by published writers who’ve taken up issues of place and culture.  As you go about deciding on a topic or project idea for this essay, I want you to try to imagine and outline your own research project for this essay.  Your research may take the form of travel, observation, interviews, online research, archival research, or any other kind of research suited to the project you establish for yourself.  You do not necessarily need to do extensive “book” research, but you may find printed sources useful as a supplement.  There is no formula for how much research you need to do in order to write a successful essay, or how much time you need to spend as a researcher, but you should know that research is important to this project.  You will have to figure out what’s “doable” for you, what’s relevant and important, and what kind of research will strengthen your essay.

Crediting Sources

In most researched creative nonfiction, writers tend not to include reference pages, but they do credit any published sources they quote by including the name of the writer and title of the work in the sentence in which the quote is introduced.  Footnotes are also sometimes used.  Creative nonfiction writers are always concerned with the elegance of their prose, but it’s also vital that you take care not to quote without crediting your source, and not to position another person’s words as your own.

Critical Reflection:

The following prompts may be used in drafting a critical reflection for Unit 3:

  • How did you decide on a topic for this essay? What other topics did you consider, and what made you settle on your final selection?
  • Discuss a moment in the composition or revision process when your thinking took a sharp turn.
  • Describe your most significant discovery or intellectual breakthrough in composing/shaping this essay.
  • What aspects of this essay are you most proud of?
  • What “mountain” did you have to climb to write this essay?
  • What are you still struggling with?
  • Discuss some quotes or key passages from the readings for this unit that influenced your thinking about the content of your essay, about how to frame your essay, how to represent your characters and yourself as a speaking self, and how to arrange your material into the final draft.

 Grading Rubric

  • Efforts to provide a focused, complex, and nuanced treatment of a cultural issue.
  • Success in establishing a pact with the reader through tone, context, precise choice of language, ethical treatment of subject matter, ethical representation of subjects, and a mature, in-depth, well-researched approach to the topic.
  • Strong detail rendered through interesting language and well-crafted scenes; strong characterizations and place descriptions.
  • Attention to horizontal and vertical movement.
  • Efforts to align form and content.
  • Thoughtful decisions about how to frame the essay, what images and meanings to privilege, strategic arrangement of material.
  • Lyricism: imagery, figurative language, avoidance of cliché, word choice that is innovative and precise, attention to phrasing, the rhythm of your sentences.
  • Success in forging discovery about one’s subject through moments of reflection, analysis, and insight into one’s own experience and into the larger relevant culture or subculture.
  • Thorough proof-reading that demonstrates the writer’s complete control over sentence structure, word choice, use of verb tenses, point of view, and use of punctuation to make the reader “hear it” the way you imagine the essay sounding.
  • Thoughtfulness and care in composing critical reflection; explicit connections to course readings.

Grading Rubric: Culture and Place    Student Name________________   Grade___________________________

Criteria A (90-100) B(80-89) C(70-79) D (65-)
providing a focused, complex, and nuanced treatment of a cultural issue

 

 Focused , complex, nuanced Focused & complex focused Lack of focus
establishing a pact with the reader through tone, context, precise choice of language, ethical treatment of subject matter, ethical representation of subjects, and a mature, in-depth, well-researched approach to the topic.

 

 Clearly To certain degree vaguely none
details rendered through interesting language and well-crafted scenes; strong characterizations and place descriptions. strong acceptable occasional Little or none
Attention to horizontal and vertical movement.

 

 balanced movements appropriate One movement may be more obvious No distinction
Alignment between form and content.

 

 Appropriate and seamless appropriate Lack of awareness of form No form
decisions about how to frame the essay, what images and meanings to privilege, strategic arrangement of material.

 

 Thoughtful framing and selection of materials Appropriate framing and selection of materials Vague framing Lack of framing
Lyricism: imagery, figurative language, avoidance of cliché, word choice that is innovative and precise, attention to phrasing, the rhythm of your sentences.

 

 Innovative and precise appropriate Some originality cliché
forging discovery about one’s subject through moments of reflection, analysis, and insight into one’s own experience and into the larger relevant culture or subculture Insightful and reflective and relevant Reflective and relevant Superficial connection No connection
Thorough proof-reading that demonstrates the writer’s complete control over sentence structure, word choice, use of verb tenses, point of view, and use of punctuation to make the reader “hear it” the way you imagine the essay sounding. Complex and appropriate Clear and appropriate Repetitive Simple
Thoughtfulness and care in composing critical reflection; explicit connections to course readings.

 

 Complex and insightful Reflective and making some connections Reflective and make little connection Non reflective